Trump signs proclamation to pause some beef tariffs despite backlash from farmers, GOP
Packages of ground beef are displayed in a cooler at a store, Aug. 24, 2026, in Los Angeles. (Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)
(WASHINGTON) — President Donald Trump has formally signed a proclamation temporarily lifting tariffs on some foreign imports of beef beginning Sept. 1, despite the firestorm of backlash he has received from farmers and Republican lawmakers over the action.
This action only applies to lean beef trimmings “to combine with U.S. beef” for ground beef, the White House said. These meat parts already entered the U.S. at a low tariff, but this action expands the amount to 300,000 metric tons.
The proclamation does not specify any countries by name that this action applies to — something the administration has been tight-lipped about.
On Tuesday, Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins was asked in an interview where the U.S. is importing this beef from.
“I am actually not part of any of those conversations, so I am not sure what that looks like,” she said, deferring to the U.S. Trade Representative.
But the proclamation does specify that it does not apply to countries with existing country-specific beef quotas, and it does not modify preexisting beef commitments for countries with a free trade agreement with the U.S.
The proclamation said the temporary tariff pause “encourages” beef to be sold at a 25% discount. Trump suggested the possibility of ending the action early if the companies do not follow through in lowering the price of beef.
“If the action taken in this proclamation does not result in a lower sale price of imported ground beef, I may end the action taken in this proclamation in order to, among other things, prevent a windfall to foreign producers,” he wrote in the proclamation.
The president initially announced this move last Friday, touting it as an effort to lower beef prices in the U.S. This comes as midterm elections are around the corner, with grocery prices top of mind for voters. But it prompted swift backlash from farmers, ranchers and Republican lawmakers who argue that it hurts the domestic agriculture industry and undercuts American beef production.
Montana Republican Sen. Tim Sheehy criticized the administration’s decision and said he even advised the president against it.
“I’ve advised President Trump against this course of action for a year because American ranchers have been struggling against the packer monopoly for decades, and this will further harm them – most of whom are MAGA Republicans,” Sen. Sheehy posted on social media.
Wyoming Republican Senate Majority Whip John Barrasso also expressed his disapproval for the plan, saying on social media that “Americans want US beef on the table – not foreign imports.”
“It needs to be easier – not harder – for Wyoming ranchers to feed America. I will continue to fight for policies that strengthen Wyoming beef producers and invest in the American cattle herd,” he added.
In addition to this proclamation, the Trump administration is considering a rollout of separate policy changes sought by the beef industry in an attempt to allay some criticism from ranchers and Republican lawmakers, a source familiar with the discussions told ABC News.
The administration has repeatedly stressed that this beef import plan is short term and will only be in effect for 90 days, which will not officially begin until Sept. 1.
The 300,000 metric tons of imported lean beef trimmings that are facing tariff relief are expected to be delivered in three 30-day tranches.
Nvidia’s logo is displayed at their headquarters on Aug. 26, 2026, in Santa Clara, California. (Benjamin Fanjoy/Getty Images)
(NEW YORK) — Nvidia surpassed Wall Street expectations for revenue over a recent three-month period, the company said on Wednesday, demonstrating strong performance as a data center boom drives demand for the company’s advanced artificial intelligence chips.
The California-based company recorded $96.2 billion in sales over three months ending in July, which beat a Bloomberg forecast of $92 billion. The jump in revenue marked 106% growth compared to the same quarter a year earlier.
In recent years, Nvidia has defied skeptics with blockbuster revenue quarter after quarter, despite political backlash against data centers and looming concern about a financial bubble in AI.
Rip-roaring growth transformed Nvidia from an ascendant AI player into the world’s most valuable company.
The results hold implications well beyond Nvidia. Many analysts view the company as a bellwether for the stock market and the overall economy, which have both come to rely in part on massive spending on AI.
As big-tech names spend hundreds of billions on chips and data centers necessary for the energy-intensive technology, however, the financial benefits remain uncertain.
The earnings reported by Nvidia offered a gauge of demand for a key building block of AI, showing whether appetite for the technology remains at a fever pitch.
Before the earnings report, Karan Girotra, a professor of operations, technology, and innovation at Cornell Tech, said investors would watch whether the company has retained its dominance in chip manufacturing.
As opposed to the highly competitive markets for AI models and enterprise products, the chip sector has given way to a clear winner.
Nvidia “does not face a serious challenger at its layer of the stack and is probably the best chance for public market investors to profit from the AI boom,” Girotra said.
Fears of an AI bubble persisted ahead of Nvidia’s previous earnings report, but the company rebuked naysayers. Nvidia recorded $81.6 billion in sales over three months ending in April, which beat analyst expectations of $79.2 billion. The jump in revenue marked 85% growth compared to the same quarter a year earlier.
Despite Nvidia’s continued expansion, investors have proven jittery in recent months. Shares have climbed 13% so far this year after soaring nearly 39% in 2025.
The company boasts a market cap of $5.1 trillion, making it roughly equivalent to the GDP of Japan or Germany. Nvidia expanded at a breakneck pace after an AI craze set off by the release of OpenAI’s ChatGPT in 2022, soaring nearly 700% over the ensuing two years.
A person finishes pumping gas at a QT gas station on Sept. 24, 2026, in Austin, Texas. (Brandon Bell/Getty Images)
Oil exports from the Middle East have improved substantially in recent weeks, according to a post on X from private tracking firm Kpler, but gas prices still stand above $4.30, and diesel prices remain close to an all-time high.
The supply of oil from the Gulf, excluding Iran, has returned to where it stood before the Iran war, Kpler said last week. Roughly four of every 10 barrels of crude now exit the region without going through the Strait of Hormuz, an adjustment in the oil supply chain, Kpler added.
At the same time, Kpler said on Wednesday, tanker traffic in the strait has improved significantly from a low point earlier in the war, bolstering exports from the region.
The apparent disconnect between a recovery in oil supply and stubborn fuel prices has drawn attention from analysts. The dynamics behind gas prices have garnered added urgency as the United States hurtles toward midterm elections in less than a month.
“Aren’t we all trying to figure that out?” Dominic Pappalardo, chief multi-asset strategist at Morningstar Wealth, told ABC News.
Analysts who spoke to ABC News attributed persistently high gas prices to lingering disruption in the region, which has forced firms to take up costly means of transporting crude and pass along those expenses to retailers.
Oil traders, meanwhile, question the staying power of newfound Middle Eastern supply, keeping crude prices higher than the level of oil flow may otherwise suggest, they said. Investors fear a potential resumption of large-scale fighting in the strait or attacks on oil infrastructure in the region, some analysts said.
Plus, analysts added, gas prices typically drop at a delayed pace in response to any reduction in oil prices, in part because it takes time for retailers to sell through refined product purchased while oil prices were at higher levels.
“When prices are fluctuating, gas stations want to protect their profit margin. They don’t want to cut prices too quickly,” Christopher Tang, a professor of supply chain management at the University of California, told ABC News.
The U.S. — the world’s largest oil producer — imports a small amount of crude from the Middle East. Since oil and gas are sold on a global market, however, the shortage has sent prices rising for everyone, including U.S. drivers.
A large-scale U.S.-Israeli attack in the winter prompted Iran’s closure of the strait, resulting in the largest oil supply shock ever recorded. Oil prices surged, catapulting inflation to its highest level since 2023.
Alternative trade routes in the region helped ease the fallout, but exports remained well below pre-war levels until recently.
To be sure, oil prices have dropped in recent weeks as supply blockages have eased. The West Texas Intermediate futures price, the benchmark index for U.S. trading, stands at about $92. That figure amounts to a roughly 9% drop since Sept. 15. The price, however, remains more than 40% higher than pre-war levels.
Oil prices account for a large share of the price of gasoline and diesel. The average price of a gallon of gas in the U.S. currently registers at $4.36, marking a decline of about 21 cents over the past month, according to AAA. Still, gas prices stand 46% higher than pre-war levels.
Even though oil supply from the Gulf has mostly recovered, the cost of transporting crude still exceeds pre-war levels, attaching new expenses to the product as it moves through the supply chain to refiners, retailers and ultimately drivers, some analysts said.
Tankers have undertaken ship-to-ship transfers as a means of evading possible attack. The cost-intensive maneuver involves direct transfer of oil from one ship to another while the two are at sea, handing off the crude to a flagged ship that carries less risk. After exiting the strait, for instance, one ship may pass oil to another.
Another source of added cost: Some tanker captains are garnering higher pay as they face increased danger, the Financial Times reported earlier this week. Some captains are receiving base salaries as high as $100,000 a month, as well as a $50,000 bonus for each trip, the outlet found. Typically, regular pay for captains is $15,000 per month, according to the FT.
“Transportation costs are still quite high. Bear in mind, the war is still going on,” Tang said. “The crude oil is moving, but the price is much higher than before the attack on Iran.”
The persistence of high gas prices traces in part to uncertainty about the path forward for the Iran war, some analysts said.
An alternative trade route in the region, Saudi Arabia’s East-West pipeline, underscores jitters felt in oil markets.
The pipeline carries as much as 7 million barrels of oil each day, about 5 million of which are exported, Aramco CEO Amin Nasser said in May. Oil exports transported through the pipeline amounted to roughly 5% of global supply.
The pipeline temporarily closed last month, however, after an attack carried out by Iran-aligned Houthi militants. Oil exports through the pipeline were restored to 5.8 million barrels a day earlier this week, Reuters reported.
Still, some analysts said, concern remains about potential Houthi attacks on the pipeline or tankers in the nearby Bab el-Mandeb Strait, which feeds into the Red Sea.
“Markets hate uncertainty. If there’s this overall feeling things could get bad again very quickly, we’re seeing that market price that in,” Hugh Daigle, a professor at the University of Texas at Austin who studies petroleum, told ABC News.
The 2027 Corvette Grand Sport X, a high-performance AWD hybrid model on display at the New York Auto Show, April 01, 2026 in New York City. (Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images)
A sports car with a naturally aspirated V12 engine and a manual transmission? It’s every enthusiast’s dream.
Buying one, however, requires deep pockets. The S1, Gordon Murray’s latest supercar creation, reportedly costs at least seven figures. All 64 units were sold even before collectors, industry insiders and admirers of Murray got a sneak peek at the S1 in August.
Murray himself has described the 681-horsepower car as “more elegant, more refined” but also “analog and deeply driver focused,” a seeming affirmation that manual gearboxes, gauges and ear-piercing revs (12,100 rpm!) can still exist in a world of increasing technology and electrification.
“A lot of customers are not too excited about hybrid supercars,” Matt Farah, host of “The Smoking Tire” podcast, told ABC News. “Regulations are making the new cars worse. People want an analog experience.”
The safety tech found in daily commuters — lane keep assist, emergency automatic braking, blind spot monitoring — has hindered the driving experience in sports cars, he argued. And hybrid powertrains — which boost output, speed and miles per gallon — can actually become a liability for owners, he said.
“Cars have just gotten insanely fast but that does not make them more fun, it makes them more braggable,” he said. “There’s no difference between 800 hp and 1,000 hp … you can only use so much on the street. I drive all this stuff and it’s boring.”
Enthusiasts are now splurging on older sports cars that have been “reimagined” by high-end restomod companies like Singer and Gunther Werks.
“The elite of the elite get real knobs and gauges and real stick shifts,” said Farah. “These small outfits are charging a lot to make old cars go faster.”
He added, “Everyone else gets stuck with a computer. The new stuff has become very digital but doesn’t have a lot of feel.”
Tony Roma, executive chief engineer for the global Corvette and performance cars team, called the latest supercars built by Murray, Czinger and others as “trendsetters,” adding that these boutique carmakers purposely keep production small.
“A lot of what they do is for show,” Roma told ABC News. “Corvette will never compete with these [supercars].”
He added, “This is a fashion industry. We sell a fashion product and people are buying the greatest and latest shiny thing.”
Roma declined to say whether a manual transmission would return in the Corvette, though he acknowledged the appeal of rowing one’s own gears and the desire for a more raw driving experience.
“What makes a great sports car? That is the question,” he said. “People want a visceral connection to their car. Customers want precise steering, a linear range of handling, they want the car to feel natural, to be a modern interpretation of the sports car in their youth. And they want it to sound great. The weight of the throttle and brake pedal — do they feel like the same person tuned them? And the car has to be confidence inspiring.”
Roma said Corvette’s customers also request a comfortable ride, which he said was achievable in all six Vettes currently sold, from the Stingray to the new Grand Sport to even the beastly ZR1X.
“Our niche, our draw, is that we’re affordable performance,” he said. “Most of our customers are not buying race cars.”
The backlash to big screens has helped propel sales of older Corvettes, like the C5 generation with manuals, Roma noted. As for the constant chatter about the unwelcome safety tech, Roma said the objections may be exaggerated.
“The people complaining about the tech … I am not sure they hate it,” he said.
Dan Pund, editor-in-chief of Road & Track, has driven many of the top supercars with hybrid powertrains. He said he’s astonished at what these machines can deliver when pushed hard on the track.
“The Ferrari 296 and F80 are amazing … they’re maintaining the sound of the engine, the gear shift, the dual clutch,” he told ABC News.
The 296 pairs a twin-turbocharged V6 with a plug-in hybrid system, which makes 819 hp. The F80’s twin-turbo V6 gets an assist from three electric motors for a terrifying 1,184 hp.
He also had high praise for McLaren’s new W1 supercar and its 916-hp twin-turbo V8, noting in his review that the electric motor is “fed by a tiny 1.4-kWh battery — might as well be a high-capacity pump flooding the driver’s brain with adrenaline, norepinephrine, and endorphins through a fire hose.”
Pund recognized that hybrid powertrains can add weight, a nightmare for purists. Automakers, however, have realized that “this is the reality of the situation … hybrid is the best option at this point. To be competitive in the industry, there has to be noise and vibration because that’s what sports car buyers want.”
And enthusiasts are clearly choosing hybrids over fully electric sports cars, he said.
“The Rimac [Nevera] was a darling of the industry but it did not sell. It feels like any electric car. You dip into the throttle and holy s— it’s fast. But you don’t hear anything and you don’t shift gears,” he said.
Ivan Drury, director of insights at Edmunds, said there will be “no end to how much people spend” on restomods as vintage sports cars with three pedals become sought after by consumers.
“As we layer in more tech and more electrification, sports cars become faster and easier to drive. But this slowly hacks away at the soul of the car,” he told ABC News. “These cars are borderline autonomous. There are so many warnings. The vehicle has more control than you do at this point.”
Fuel economy has never been a selling point for sports cars, he noted, which make up less than 1% of industry sales. Drury said he, too, has become nostalgic for older models like the Honda Prelude, which was his first car.
“Honda brought back the Prelude nameplate as a throwback,” he said. “Prelude looks the part but doesn’t back it up with speed and innovation. It would not surprise me at all if Honda pulls the plug on the Prelude after two to three years.”
A Honda spokesperson told ABC News that the company is meeting sales targets of the sports car.
“We announced during the launch of the Prelude that we expected annual sales volume of approximately 4,000 units,” the spokesperson said. “We also noted that Prelude wasn’t meant to be a volume model, but instead a halo for our hybrid lineup, as it attracts faithful Honda fans while also bringing new buyers to the Honda brand. In fact, more than a third of Prelude buyers have come from another brand.”
Farah said he was impressed with the Nissan Z Nismo, a manual sports car that costs a fraction of the price of supercars he regularly test drives.
“It’s under $70,000 and very engaging. That car has a lot of poise, great brakes and is very good dynamically — there’s not a lot of computer intervention,” he said.
But the Nissan is an exception, he admitted.
“It’s very telling that people would rather spend $3 million to $4 million on a [restomod] supercar than $700,000 on a new one,” he said.
